Because they have again written and continue to write from Yndia that the said decrees prohibiting the said commerce are not being observed by the Castilians, and because they everywhere encourage it and increase to a great extent the evils that result therefrom, which might be very serious indeed, and difficult to remedy, and involve the total destruction and loss of those states:  his Majesty ordered, for the more thorough understanding of these details, that they should make this report of the existing causes for not continuing this commerce, and even for prohibiting it.  These reasons are as follows: 

The state of Eastern Yndia is very large, and its cities and garrisons very distant and remote from one another, and situated in the territories of kings and princes of great power.  On this account they are maintained by regular soldiery and very powerful fleets, of large and small galleys and galleons.  All the Portuguese resident in those places, and other Christian vassals of his Majesty, easily bear the excessive expense.  The latter is made up by the income from those cities and strongholds.  This income, although it exceeds a million, is not sufficient to obviate its being always pledged.  Some aid in money is sent from Portugal.  This income from Yndia consists principally in imposts from the said cities, which are paid for entries and clearances.  The entire amount of these imposts is raised on merchandise from China, Maluco, Amboino, Banda, and other regions of the south; for the taxes that are raised on merchandise coming from the northern districts are of so much less importance, and the merchandise likewise, that they cannot be compared with those of the south.  The principal commerce that the Portuguese have to live upon, is that from China and other southern districts, because the other traffic is contracted for by his Majesty’s treasury and belongs to it.  The better and more valuable trade through the southern districts belongs to the crown.

From all this it may be inferred that if we continue this commerce with China and other southern regions by way of the western Yndias, the income from the customs duties, on which Yndia is supported, will necessarily be lost.  Nor will there be money or forces with which many large fleets may be organized by his Majesty for its preservation and defense, or with which to pay the soldiery stationed there, or to bear all the other state expenses incurred by the public government, or those incurred by his Majesty for the ecclesiastical estate in those places the conquest of which was granted to him by the apostolic bulls.  The rest of these reasons which concern his Majesty’s service, the profit and loss of his treasury, and what is expedient for common good of the inhabitants of that state, should be considered in this case with the greatest care.  For the inhabitants of Yndia have no other resources to live upon except trade and commerce; and of these the principal is the trade with China and other places to which reference has been made.  On this account, they feel very strongly the seizure of this commerce by the Castilians, saying that they and their fathers and forefathers conquered it for the royal crown with their blood and lives.  There are and were on this subject practices and complaints of base character, principally in the city of Goa, the capital of that state.